Author Topic: Charlatanism in all sciences in the modern world (Read 2254 times)

gladius_veritatis · « **on:** April 11, 2008, 02:40:08 PM »

Every science has been degraded in our era through the inclusion of non-scientific charlatanism within its ranks/tenets. The first thing to do here is restate an oft-forgotten fact: The Physical or Natural Sciences are but a part of the picture. Among the Natural Sciences, Philosophy holds the primacy. When revelation enters the picture (which fact is in no way contrary to any science nor to reason), Theology takes the first place. All the physical sciences are but servants of the Queen (whether we are taking the Queen to be Philosophy or Theology). Our need for the knowledge of material things pales in comparison to our need for the knowledge of causes, principles, and the raison d'etre of all beings, contingent and Necessary.

The train went off the track, so to speak, quite some time ago. The initial movement in the wrong direction was taken by philosophers, and it has trickled down into every other field since. Since that initial deviation, philosophy itself has fallen in the grossest (and often just plain ridiculous) errors. It is only fitting that we discuss philosophical error first - as the corruption of the Queen will guarantee the corruption of the subjects.

I have obligations which prevent me from writing more now, but suffice it to say we could have the world's longest thread on philosophical error alone. Read Kant, if you can. Better yet, read a sound commentary upon his thought. It is absurdity being passed off as profundity. I must go now, but I would like (with cooperation from others) to develop this thread at length, as time permits. We cannot expose all the error, as the world is AWASH in it. Cheers.

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #1 on:** April 12, 2008, 02:42:36 PM »

The initial deviation from the right philosophical road (Aristotelian-Thomism) came as early as the 14th century. The first false move was something known as Nominalism. This error was put forth by William of Occam, a son of Holy Church. I shall see if I can find an article explaining the nature of this error, saving me from writing much on my own (I just do not have the time now).

roscoe · « **Reply #2 on:** April 12, 2008, 03:55:24 PM »

Occams hereay is called nominalism because he would say that the Real Presence in the Eucharist is not Real at all...in other words Christ is present in name only. Others who come to mind include Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Galileo etc
This is where the term Occams Razor comes from--it just means that the simplest solution to a problem is usually the correct one.

Since the mind of Mr Occam couldn't comprehend transubstantiation, his simple solution was to deny that it could be so.

Occam would also say that the Emperor has a right to depose the Pope should he fall into heresy.

Sources on Occam
1-Fr. Fahey==Mystical Body Of Christ In The Modern World
2-Fr. Parsons==Studies In Church History v3
3-Pastor==History Popes v1
4-Redondi==Galileo Heretic

Ciao

cathman7 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2008, 05:39:26 PM »

I thought I would share some information I posted on FE about a year and a half ago on William of Occam:

Quote

Christian Denominations
Fr. Konrad Algermissen

William of Occam is the systematizer and the chief champion of nominalism. He was preceded in the same century by the labors of his confrere in the religious life, the French Franciscan Peter d' Auriole (d. 1322), from 1321 Archbishop of Aix and called Doctor facundus because of his oratorical skill. Occam's importance in philosophy and theology is far greater than his ecclesiastico-political significance. His sharp, critical spirit earned for him the title doctor singularis et invincibilis. As founder of the modern theory of knowledge, he is a forerunner of Kant.

According to Occam's teaching, intellectual knowledge is a product of the intellect, which is so constituted that it advances to the formulation of universal concepts from the knowledge of individual things, stimulated by sense perceptions. General concepts, the so-called universals, are therefore not something real either within the soul or outside of it, but they are subjective signs for individual things that appear alike, which indeed reflect the actual, but only according to their species. Therefore all knowledge is subjective. Science has to do with this purely subjective knowledge, not with objective reality. Hence there can be no such thing as a proving of faith.

Faith, belonging to an altogether different world from that of science, is infused by God and based solely upon the Bible as the inspired word of God. There is no road leading from knowledge to faith. Apparently, thereby, the content of faith was withdrawn from rationalist destruction, but the exemption is only apparent; for in reality it is the same reason (intellect), whose products according to Occam are purely subjective, which passes judgment both concerning questions of science and concerning God and God's word. The basis of Occam's theory of knowledge, therefore, necessarily led to rationalism and subjectivism in the religious sphere. (Footnote: Liberal Protestant theology since Kant has followed this teaching to its last consequences.)

According to Occam's teaching, God, as the supreme sovereign, is in His metaphysical being absolutely free will, that is, unlimited arbitrary power. Everything depends on God, who wills and makes the decisions. Occam expressly teaches that God could have commanded man to steal, to be impure, to commit adultery, even to hate God, just as now He has forbidden him to do those things. The absolute will of God is also the all-causing will, but in such a way that, in the domain which He has arbitrarily prescribed to man for fulfillment as ethical, He operates through the free will of man. This free will of man is the all-determining force of his soul life, actually the metaphysical essence of man, analagous to the essence of God. Therefore man can fulfill everything that God has prescribed. He can love God in the most perfect manner and he can fulfill His law without imperfection, if he only wills to do so; he can even compel his understanding to regard what has no meaning as something full of meaning.

In His absolute freedom of will, God has given men definite commandments which are good, not in their essence, but only according to the will of God. In this absolute freedom of the will He has, moreover, joined the meritoriousness of the fulfilling of the law to the "spiritual ornamentation of grace," that is, to a spiritual quality mediated by the sacraments, whereby the works wrought by man's free will are stamped so that God, pursuant to His decrees, accepts them as meritorious. For that reason, even though man is able by his own power to will to fulfill all the commandments, even that of perfect love of God, Church and sacraments are necessary.

Just as merit rest ultimately, not upon the inner, ontological moral values of human acts, effected by the grace of divine filation, but upon their arbitrary, though stipulated and established acceptance on the part of God, so also the essence of sin consists not in the inner, moral worthlessness of an act, but it consists also in the arbitrary, though established divine imputation of guilt. And the remission of sin is nothing but the non-imputation of the guilt of sin. In spite of his teaching concerning God as sole cause, Occam as a result of his exaggerated emphasis upon man's free will arrives at outspoken Pelagianism, a system which takes away the meaning of sin and grace. We must understand that in theology as early as the fourteenth century there was a lively discussion of the question how the all-determining will of God is related to the evil actions of man. Indeed it was not possible to arrive at a solution of the question from the nominalist point of view.

In the nominalist theology of that period we witness again and again the futile attempt to overcome rationalism and skepticism from the standpoint of the fundamental ideas of nominalism, and it is precisely these ideas that must logically lead to rationalism and skepticism. The most important and fateful attempt was undertaken by the members of the religious order of which Martin Luther later became a member, the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. It was especially the general of that order, Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358 at Vienna), the Doctor authenticus, who recognized that the irrationalism in the clique of Occam was only a facade, behind which lurked the specter of rationalism, and that the stressing of the all-embracing will and operation of God in nominalism inadequately covered the disappearance of the concepts of sin and grace. By combining the Augustinian teaching about sin and grace with the fundamental ideas of the nominalists, he tried to overcome the inner emptiness of Occam's system and to avoid the rationalist and Pelagian conclusions to which it led. The antithesis to the rationalism and Pelagianism contained in nominalism was bound to lead, on the basis of a joining of the nominalist and voluntarist concept of God with the Augustinian teaching concerning sin and grace, to an overemphasis on sin and grace with regard to the human will and to an erroneous concept of original sin. Gregory of Rimini characterizes original sin as realis qualitas animae, and as ipsa concupiscentia. It was the Occamism of a confrere of Gregory of Rimini, under whose influence Luther came very early, as the Protestant historian of dogma, Reinhold Seeberg, plainly states: "The combination of nominalist philosophy and Augustinian theology, effected by Gregory, was not something new in the beginnings of his greatest confrere, Martin Luther."

It is evident that a combination of nominalism with the Augustinian thinking had more of a theological effect than pure nominalism did, even though that combination, proceeding as it does from false assumptions, must lead to false conclusions. With the addition of ideas taken from German mysticism, this fabric was bound to appear even more interesting and profound. Luther made this addition from the teaching of mysticism concerning resignation, but in doing so he retained the erroneous Occamist idea of God and Occam's erroneous fundamental doctrines regarding knowledge, and interpreted erroneously the above-mentioned doctrine of mysticism concerning resignation as a purely passive attitude of man with relation to God. Especially he made what was before merely a matter of philosophical and theological speculation, a matter of his inmost heart. During a period of most oppressive spiritual distress he prepared for himself, in a system fashioned out of nominalist, Augustinian, and mystical parts, an ark in which he believed he would be able to sail safely over the dark depths of spiritual lack of consolation and terrible despair, and find a merciful God...

- pp. 729-733

Cletus · « **Reply #4 on:** April 12, 2008, 06:18:12 PM »

And another thing. He was no gentleman, otherwise he would not have discounted so heretically and so callously the pious and loving transfer of private property from Mary Magdalene and Salome and Joanna and Susanna and many other women to the Divine Teacher and His disciples.

Vandaler · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2008, 09:01:41 AM »

Gladius, you speak of the thruth as if it's only one thing, an that there is right now a theory of everything that can attain it.

Phylosophy, theology are both necessary to answer certain questions but they have their limits.

Modern science has been very successful with it's method to, in less then 200 years totally transform the way we live. It cannot continue making the giant leaps it continues making at a dizzing pace if it's built on charlatanism.

I'll grant you that science cannot answer every questions, and the most fundamental ones will not be answered by science. They all are necessary to bring about comprehension.

Im also bothered by the term charlatantism, which implies willful. The open nature of science, and the peer review process makes this impossible. If there is charlatantism, it would be very easy to exposed and self corrected.

How do you suppose we culd have come so far in 200 years on faulty premises ? It's not reasonable and not serious.

Cletus · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2008, 06:01:18 PM »

If I may interject...

In a related thread I brought in the obvious fact that there are many areas of life in which what we call Modern Science has been a boon and many facets of this Science which simply do not lend themselves to ideological exploitation by the sons of Belial.

That became an occasion to poke further fun at Traditional Catholics.

So I dropped that angle. I didn't jump into this fray in order to provide occasions for poking fun at Traditional Catholics.

And now look. The subtle gadfly has become a pious acolyte. We're getting the usual adagio for strings about poor, misunderstood, unappreciated Mr. Modern Scientist. Before our eyes now march in solemn order his many blessings. Heart transplants. Light bulbs. Steamships. Electric razors. The atom bomb.

Be all that as it may, "Modern Science" is and always had been a matter of anti-Revelation fanaticism and quackery in many important areas.

And bringing in the idea of peer pressure is the best way for anyone seeking to defend "Modern Science" to slit his own throat. Yes, in certain crucial areas they all agree because they know that it would not be good for their career health to disagree.

Students in those Godless dens of iniquity called schools quickly learn that if they are so much as suspected as heaving a soft spot for the Lord of Hosts they will be... EXPELLED, so to speak.

No one faults "Modern Science" for not answering every question. It is faulted for preaching its false answers as though they were the god's truth, even though it believes in no god.

Can Modern Science tell us that the Gospels must have been written before those mid to late second century dates put forward by Modern Skeptics in the 19th century?

Can it tell us that significant portions of our oldest Bibles, going back to the 4th century, are in substantial agreement with texts that go back to the 1st century AD or even BC?

It can and it does. But Modern Skeptics had to be dragged kicking and screaming into an admission that the Gospels must have been composed in the first century and that at least in the case of the Book of Isaiah and chunks from other prophets the old Rationalist bugaboo about the transmission of Biblical texts was run out of town on a rail.

But the angels won nothing in the bargain. Modern Skeptics who teach theology and history STILL speak in terms of "Gospel traditions" as though there were a hundred years between the time of the apostles' preaching and the time of the writing of the Gospels. A hundred and not forty. A hundred and not twenty-five.

But what about the lowly papyrologists and archaelogists who on the basis of various hard findings dragged the Council of the Freethinkers kicking and screaming into an admission that Christian tradition was just about right on the subject of when the Gospels were written?

All the time I see how they cringe and fawn and lick the boots of Mr. Modern Scientist. In penitential loyalty. In order to save Rationalist face among their Scientific peers they are forced to bend over backwards to punish Believers for "taking advantage" of the extremely Naughty Facts that they have established in the Scientific community.

With their pickaxes and their microscopes they have proven Christian tradition correct in an area vital to Apologetics. But, being Modern Men of Science, they are concerned first and foremost not with their own scientific discovery but with guaranteeing that those damnable God-people will never have a day's luck with what they have discovered.

"Yes, okay, all right, darn it, the Gospels fall into the realm of the time period called living memory. But if you Fundamentalists think that that makes them historistic any more than the fact of the cινιℓ ωαr makes Scarlett O'Hara and Mammy historistic..."

Vandaler · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2008, 06:49:36 PM »

Quote from: Cletus

And now look. The subtle gadfly has become a pious acolyte. We're getting the usual adagio for strings about poor, misunderstood, unappreciated Mr. Modern Scientist. Before our eyes now march in solemn order his many blessings. Heart transplants. Light bulbs. Steamships. Electric razors. The atom bomb.

You can interject anytime... with such witty, funny and musical jest.

I mean no disrespect to Gladius, and I'm almost reluctantly engaging him on this subject. What I wrote, i did for consideration, but won't press this lemon anymore then I did.

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #8 on:** April 14, 2008, 12:29:06 PM »

Quote from: Vandaler

Gladius, you speak of the thruth as if it's only one thing, an that there is right now a theory of everything that can attain it...

Truth IS one, Van. It is part of the essence thereof. There is an organic unity to ALL truth - including the truths of the natural sciences. It is only in the ever-more-fragmented mind of modern men that it is compartmentalized.

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #9 on:** April 14, 2008, 12:35:09 PM »

Quote from: Vandaler

Modern science has been very successful with it's method to, in less then 200 years totally transform the way we live. ..

There have been tremendous strides - an idea I do not propose to refute. However, advancement on the purely material level, while losing immense ground on the most important level of man's nature, is nothing to celebrate. All areas of life are presently inverted, and means are usurping the place proper for the end. This is as true in physical science as it is, for example, in the science of economics.

Since we have forgotten our end, we do not employ the means correctly - including the material discoveries and advancements of the physical sciences.

gladius_veritatis · « **Reply #10 on:** April 14, 2008, 12:42:01 PM »

In a nutshell: An existence that is materially better (or at least has the appearance of being better) is worthless if we have forgotten why we exist in the first place. "You travel well, but by the wrong road."

We shall shortly be made very painfully aware that the supposed material prosperity has been but a quickly-passing dream, not at all in accord with nature or our own good.

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #11 on:** April 14, 2008, 08:54:16 PM »

I am glad you brought this issue up, gladius. :smile:

It is very important to understanding the nature of things going on in the Church and the world right now, for the problems are not merely liturgical and doctrinal but go far deeper into the philosophical and theological as well.

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #12 on:** April 14, 2008, 08:55:10 PM »

Honestly, I have not yet read all of the thread, but it looks interesting.

Dulcamara · « **Reply #13 on:** April 14, 2008, 10:59:16 PM »

The philosophical error began with the devil in the beginning, when he said he would not serve. That philosophy has wrought havoc in every department of human thought and human life and human science. (I might add, even the arts.)

I can't believe that any Catholic who gives it any thought could miss the obvious truth that something has happened to the sciences, and indeed to every other sphere of human life and learning. But it all goes back to some person or persons who refuse the truth, and who made their lives about defeating it by erecting lies... like Darwin did against creationism.

You would almost have to take it field by field and sphere by sphere to discern what ideas of what men poisoned each particular area, but as a whole, it all goes back to men who do not want God or the truth, and who therefore decided to work against it. Modern man's heroes are the characters who simply did that better than anyone else. Like Freud or Darwin.

As for modern science, it's time that everybody began looking for the proverbial man behind the curtain... that is, it's time people realized that most of it has been a spectacular outward show, with all kinds of fantasy and promises attached to it... but with a reality that is often quite different. The reality is a bunch of revolutionary atheists or men of error, who have tried to reinvent the truth according to their own will and desire.

For example, modern man now thinks he can fix depression with a magic pill. In fact, modern man seems to think he can fix everything with a magic pill. But the doctors could not possibly admit to the public what happens to people who take those magic pills... for instance, the number of them who kill themselves, who never would have done so otherwise. The promise is that the doctors will be as gods, with the power to fix all human pain and suffering and illness. The reality is, at best they can dope people up so that they're indifferent enough about everything to not care about their problems, and at worst there are lots of much worse things that these pills do, than simply the patient feeling a little blue all the time. Like making people feel actually MORE depressed... and extremely so.

The parallel is there in medicine. They're going to vaccinate us until we are invincible! This time the promise is that WE will be as gods, living forever. The reality is not only aren't we living longer, healthier lives... but more people than ever are dying of cancer and the medicines themselves. And some of those who survive will be deprived of a normal life by autism or other severe handicaps. Notice that at some point, they had to do away with the Hippocratic Oath. Why? The answer was obvious. Some men thought it better to "advance" even if the result was harmful (in some cases even fatal), than to play it safe and realize our human limitations.

By sin death (and sickness) came into the world. I don't think mankind is going to get them back out of it, any more than we can erase original sin from everyone who enters into it. We are going to be chastised in some form or another for sin. Science would like to pretend otherwise. But the reality is there haunting us, with every drug induced ѕυιcιdє, every vaccine induced brain damage, and every proof of truth in this world.

Ultimately, all of the faulty science (and politics, arts, social problems, etc...) comes down to men who do not want to acknowledge God or the truth, and who are willing to let countless people die to keep this intellectual tower of Babel from toppling.

roscoe · « **Reply #14 on:** April 17, 2008, 12:07:24 AM »

The subject matter of Redondi's Galileo Heretic is physics as opposed to astronomy. It seems that those who have an Epicurian, atomist, quantum approach to physics(opposing Aristotle) such as Occam, Galileo, Orreggi(personal theologian to Urban VIII) or Campanella have a synchronious belief in Scripture Alone as a philosophy. They stipulate acc to the Bible on the existance of light w/o subject.

These have theories of light that are termed substantialist as opposed to Orthodox Catholics who have a transubstantialist conception of light. Apparently the supernatural miracle of the Real Presence is related to the debate over the natural v the supernatural conception of light particles(photons).

For a long time I had Urban on my bad list but he did acquit himself in the end with the condemnation of Galileo. The action against Galileo in terms of astonomy is ony symbolic in 1633-he is reprimanded for insisting the Sun was fixed and in the center of the universe. The real cause is the same one the Protestants always go for the jugular on--an atomist theory of light to attack The Real Presence.

Is it possible that the Photonic Band is related to the Real Presence in some way? Ciao